Solving Waukegan's sand problem anything but quick

City would like to spread sand dredged from its harbor onto nearby beaches, but environmental testing is too expensive

June 21, 2013|By Jennifer Delgado, Chicago Tribune reporter

Meira Adams, 2, runs through the sand last week at Waukegan Beach. The nearby harbor is slated to be dredged in mid-July, but that sand can't be moved to nearby beaches because of the area's history of environmental problems. (Stacey Wescott, Chicago Tribune)

Superstorm Sandy dumped 60,000 cubic yards of sand into the mouth of Waukegan Harbor last fall, clogging the entrance.

Nearby, beaches have grown thin, in part because all the sand is getting trapped in Waukegan.

The solution to both problems seemed simple: Take the sand from the harbor and put it on the beaches.

That, however, is proving to be more difficult than anyone expected.

Despite efforts by at least two towns to acquire the excess sand, the cost of state-mandated environmental testing is preventing the move, Waukegan officials said. So the sand remains, keeping the harbor shallow and disrupting commercial boat traffic.

"There's nothing much we can do about it right now," said Jon Shabica, vice president of Shabica & Associates, a consulting firm working with Waukegan. "The problem with those sets of tests is those municipalities don't have the money."

Shabica said that before sand could be taken out of Lake Michigan and moved to nearby beaches, he was told by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency that it would need to be tested for asbestos fibers, a hazard that has plagued the harbor in the past. The estimated cost of the testing is $17,000, Shabica said.

The state EPA would not comment on whether it is requiring testing of the sand. Officials in sand-starved Lake Bluff think the testing is unnecessary — the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has conducted annual testing on Waukegan Harbor and has found no asbestos in at least 10 years.

The Corps of Engineers dredges the harbor's entrance annually, but is permitted to move the sand only to nearby Zion or to a disposal site in the lake. Adding other towns to the permit could take up to a year, said Tim Kroll, operations project manager for the corps' Chicago district.

"We thought it was going to be a fairly simple process," said Ron Salski, executive director of the Lake Bluff Park District, which had hoped to get some of the sand for its beaches. "And then when we heard back, it was going to be more complicated and less cost-effective. It wasn't worth doing."

Typically, sand along western Lake Michigan migrates from north to south, a littoral pattern that begins along the beaches of Wisconsin and ends at the Indiana Dunes. But much of the sand gets trapped by the walls and structures of Waukegan Harbor, where the nearby beach has grown over the years, according to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

The harbor and the nearby Naval Station Great Lakes often block sand from reaching beaches south of the barriers. Public beaches immediately south of Waukegan in North Chicago and Lake Bluff are eroding as a result, local park district officials said.

The Corps of Engineers dredges the approach channel to the harbor annually, moving about 75,000 cubic yards of sand. When superstorm Sandy hit the Chicago area in October, the tempest created 25-foot waves in Lake Michigan that carried nearly a year's worth of sand accumulation into the approach channel of Waukegan Harbor. The sand pileup halted commercial shipping, already affected by low lake levels.

Waukegan hired Shabica's firm to monitor the issue and figure out a solution, and it suggested giving away the sand. Waukegan officials liked the idea because it would solve sand problems in the region, said Noelle Kischer-Lepper, the city's director of policy and projects.

"It seems silly for us to take our excess sand and put it in a landfill somewhere when there's another beach on the same lake that needs exactly what we have," she said. "If it comes out of the same body of water, why not move it a few miles down the road?"

Asbestos can scar the lungs and lead to diseases such as cancer, and nearby Illinois Beach State Park in Zion has had problems with asbestos in the past. Spreading sand with asbestos to other communities would be problematic. A state EPA spokesman said the agency met with Waukegan officials about the sand, but he didn't have enough information to comment on the specifics of those discussions or any asbestos testing.

"It doesn't financially make sense to pay for what might be a $17,000 test to move what might be $10,000 worth of sand," said Shabica, whose firm is also working with other lakefront communities on shore protection and coastal restoration.

The harbor is known for its pollution, but Waukegan officials are trying to remove the stigma and the chemicals in the water.

According to the federal EPA, employees at a now-shuttered insulation manufacturing plant began dumping asbestos and other residue into a disposal area that led to Lake Michigan in 1922. Polychlorinated biphenyls were found in Waukegan's inner harbor in 1976, though the area is being cleaned and is scheduled to be freeof contamination by 2014.

Lake Bluff officials said they waited as long as possible in hopes of using Waukegan's sand. With no resolution in sight, the Lake Bluff Park District last month ordered 528 tons of sand from a quarry, costing $8,000.